I won’t be writing anything here for the next three weeks. This weekend, Jill and I depart for a 20-day sojourn in Cambodia and Laos.
Our itinerary is open-ended–just the way I like it. We fly from here to Phnom Penh, Cambodia (with a one-night layover in Bangkok), and then we fly home from Vientiane, Laos. […]
–I wrote a lengthy item a few months ago about how much I love the band Wilco. And so I’d been eagerly awaiting their newest album, A Ghost is Born.
I’m quite disappointed. There are vast stretches of the record that are simply…well, bad. Hard to listen to. Ugly-sounding.
My feeling is that the band […]
Checking in on Bolivia, the AP says: “Nine months after nearly 60 people died in street fighting against plans to export natural gas, Bolivians peacefully voted to do just that in a referendum that appeared to boost a president trying to calm simmering social unrest.”
The story’s complicated; I defer to Bolivia expert Miguel Centellas to […]
–Wendy H., God bless her, sends word that “Trekkies 2″ is now available on DVD. (The follow-up to the hilarious “Trekkies,” this flick never came out in theaters. For shame.)
– Would you believe that a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet command is named…drumroll please…
Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico.
Believe it. Seriously.
With a name like that, […]
I’m generally skeptical of personal productivity systems. I think they’re mostly much ado about nothing–how hard is it, really, to simply think about what you want from life and then set about accomplishing it? (Okay, so maybe it’s not that easy.)
Out of curiosity, I read Stephen Covey’s hugely popular “Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People.” […]
It’s not as far-fetched as one might imagine. And let’s just say this: yours truly will have a front-row seat for the main event, baby!
I’m happy to report that, at long last, I’m making some progress in learning Chinese. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been surprised at how difficult the language is to pick up. But now, after perhaps 10 hours in the classroom learning the tones, Jill and I have moved on to actually speaking words and phrases […]
Quick note: we’re back from Taipei. A good time was had by all.
My soccer team performed well, making it to the semi-finals, where we were beaten by an excellent squad that went on to win the championship (and which contained a member of the Taiwan national soccer team).
The logistics of the trip are worth […]
I won’t be writing anything here for the next week-and-a-half or so. I’m taking some time off from blogging, and then next weekend Jill and I are off to Taipei. My soccer team’s playing in the Taiwan Summer Cup tournament (don’t miss the very amusing team page of the site). Wish us luck.
I leave you […]
Last weekend Jill and I had the pleasure of visting Tainan, a nice little city about a 30 minute train ride north of here. (I had a soccer game there; it was a heartbreaking 1-0 loss, but that’s another story.)
Anyway, I was going to write a little something about the city, but then I […]
An unintentionally funny headline for a Taiwan News editorial:
Streaker exposes university’s rigidity
Um. Okay.
[NOTE: this post, describing an accident involving jalapeno peppers, has attracted a huge number of comments. See below. And please add your own thoughts as we seek a cure for this strange affliction!]
I received the following email from a good friend who I’ll call CD. He lives in the Washington, DC area. He sends along […]
“GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (Reuters) - Once scorned as one of Latin America’s grimiest, down-at-the-heel cities, Ecuador’s sprawling port of Guayaquil has become a model of urban renewal for the region.
Thanks to a $1 billion face-lift by local authorities completed last year after a decade of work, the country’s most populous city has all but erased its […]